David Bowie received a posthumous award for his ★ album in the Pop Music category at the Melvyn Bragg-hosted South Bank Sky Arts Awards (SBSAA) 2017, at The Savoy Hotel in London tonight (Sunday).

Iggy Pop accepted the award and paid tribute to his long-time friend and collaborator in a pre-recorded video message from his home in the United States. Iggy reminisced about how he and David would watch The South Bank Show together in the late ‘70s.

Here’s an exclusive transcript of what he said:

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“Hi, I’m Iggy Pop and I was a sort of stowaway, if you will, on David Bowie’s Station To Station tour, during which he shared digs with me in London at a beautiful old Victorian house that was looked after by a lady named Mrs Potter. And during our time with Mrs Potter he introduced me to The South Bank Show, because it was on TV and he didn't want to miss it. He thought it was the place to be if you were going to be a who's who or what's what in British arts, performing arts especially.”

“Later, during the making of The Idiot in Hérouville, France, the producer Tony Visconti had brought over a big load of The South Bank Shows which we would watch to interrupt the hilarity of the Monty Python stuff he also brought with him.”

“So, as important as David Bowie was to a lot of us, certainly for changing the game in my life, but also for changing the game in rock and roll and in popular music, The South Bank Show meant something to him as well. I can testify to that.”

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You can watch The South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2017 in the UK, on Wednesday, July 12th, at 8:00pm on Sky Arts.